Emotions Flashcards
What are emotions
Cognitions, feelings or actions
Elman’s basic emotions are
o Distinctive signals
o Specific physiology
o Specific antecedents
o Distinctive subjective experience
Locationist view of emotions
relies on consistency and specificity of brain activity
Constructionivist perspective on emotions
o Focus on broader emotional dimensions rather than discrete categories
o Influenced by context, memories and sensory information
o Based on core affect and interpretation
What is the startle reflex?
• Auditory input transmits to the pons via medulla
• Levels of anxiety influence magnitude of startle reflex
• Valid behavioural measure of fear/anxiety
What is fear conditioning?
Pairing of a light or sound with an aversive stimulus
Amygdala importance
important in mediation and interpretation of fear.
Directs attention toward novel stimuli that are uncertain
Amygdala location
Positioned in anterior medial portion of the temporal lobe
Transduction amygdala emotions
Sensory information enters the thalamus and projects via two paths to the lateral nucleus of the amygdala
Two types of ‘roads’ for amygdala
• High road: indirect pathway to the amygdala via somatosensory cortex and hippocampus
• Low road: Direct to amygdala
How does information transmit to other brain regions
• Periaqueductal gray: emotional behaviours
• Lateral hypothalamus: autonomic responses
• Bed nucleus of stria terminals: hormone responses
Lovationist view of disgust
Locationist perspective: anterior insula suggested to be specifically and consistently involved in experience of disgust
Role of insula
Anterior insula involved in awareness of internal body states, internal detector rather than disgust centre
